


Walls Keep Shifting

by carojane



Category: Glee
Genre: Blangst, Drug Use, Infidelity, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:15:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4502181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carojane/pseuds/carojane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is spiraling out of control for Blaine when even his own mind turns against him.</p>
<p>Follows the events of fourth season Glee, The New Rachel through Thanksgiving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls Keep Shifting

**Author's Note:**

> “what’s real or isn’t real doesn’t matter here. the consequences are the same.”  
> \- House of Leaves

“Are you drinking? It’s not even 4.” Blaine has just walked through the door to find his mother, glass in hand, whisky bottle on the ottoman, collapsed in an armchair in the living room.

She scoffs, “My husband left me. I think I’m allowed a drink.”

Blaine pauses. “Dad left?”

“Don’t act too surprised. It’s been a long time coming.”

“I mean, you guys were fighting a lot more, but you’ve always worked it out before. I didn’t think he would leave you.” He steps into the room, ready to comfort her, trying to come up with ways to make this better.

“It’s not just me he left,” she says, fixing him with a heated glare.

It catches him off guard. “What?”

“He doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore, either.”

Blaine blinks, stunned. “Did he say that?”

“What did you expect?” Pam asks with a derisive laugh.

“Where did he go? Does he have his phone? I can call him. Maybe you didn’t understand him.”

She fixes him with a condescending look before saying, slowly, “Blaine. He stopped wanting to be your father years ago. I had just hoped he still wanted to be my husband.”

“He can’t just quit being my dad, though,” he argues back.

“Well, he did,” she snaps. “You should have tried harder.”

“What do you mean? Try to be less gay?”

“Well,” she says waving her hand, leaving the implied ‘there you go’ silent.

“Mom, I’m gay,” he cried out, frustrated. “I love Kurt who is also gay. I can’t change who I am just to make dad happy.”

“You never did try.”

“No. That’s not fair,” Blaine argues back. “I tried. I tried to be the perfect son dad wanted. I built that god damn car with him. I talked football and played golf with him. I got perfect grades. I even tried dating a girl once, and it didn’t work, because I’m gay. If anyone didn’t try, it’s him.”

“Yes, you’re the perfect son who tries so hard and still can’t get his daddy to love him,” Pam mocks.

“Stop it,” Blaine pleads. 

“Do you know how hard it was to go to dinner parties with John’s colleagues, and have them pity us because we had a fag for a son.” Pam doesn’t notice Blaine’s flinch at the word and continues, “‘Don’t worry,’ they said, ‘He’ll grow out of it. Boys like Blaine like to experiment because it’s so “cool” these days.’ They pitied me. And imagine what they thought. What kind of mother did they think I was?”

“You’re not my mother anyway,” he snaps. It’s a low blow, and Blaine regrets it the minute it leaves his mouth, but tonight seems like a night for low blows.

It’s something not talked about in their house - his brother’s nanny, whose pregnancy had ended John Anderson’s first marriage, and who had dropped the baby on the front porch before running off to parts unknown. Pam had adopted Blaine soon after marrying his father, and she was the only mother he had ever known.

“Well,” Pam says carefully, standing up with only a momentary wobble to betray her inebriated state, “Your mom didn’t want you either.” She grabs the bottle of scotch and walks out of the room.

Blaine grabs his keys and book bag, running out the door with tears streaming down his face. He slams the car door shut as he climbs in, digging out his cell phone and fumbling as he unlocks it and pokes at the screen to dial Kurt’s number. “Please pick up, please pick up,” he chants and swears when the all-to-familiar sound of Kurt’s voicemail message. He hangs up and redials, with the same results.

 

He texts:

_Kurt. Please call._

waits. texts: 

_I rlly need to talk._

waits. texts:

_R u there?_

waits. texts:

_Kurt?_

 

A response doesn’t come for another five minutes.

_Huge project launching today and super swamped. Going out after to celebrate. Call tomorrow?_

Blaine screams and slams his hands on the steering wheel.

 

·•·

 

He’s driving, not quite knowing where he’s going, just knowing he doesn’t want to go home.  He can’t go home. He pulls into a park. He calls his dad. It goes to voicemail and he hangs up without leaving a message. He tries to remember the last time his dad picked up when he called and can’t. He thinks he’s heard the calm and simple recorded “You’ve called John Anderson. Leave a message.” more than he’s heard his father’s voice in person. 

Did his dad really hate him that much? He knew having a gay son was hard on his father, and there was even a small fear when he first came out that his dad would kick him out, but it was always so hypothetical.

His father was never close to him growing up - probably never wanted him in the first place. After coming out, it had only gotten worse. And now? He had left - not just him, he had left his mom too because of him.

And now his mom hated him. She had always said she never wanted to be a mother, but that he was worth loving. They were inseparable when he was younger - she showed him off to all her country club friends, with his impeccable manners and impromptu performances. That tapered off some as he grew older, and she was busier with her new Mary Kay job and busy social life. 

Did that happen before or after he came out? Had she stop loving him years ago and just never tell him? 

Over the past few years, his parents had started taking vacations together, trying to rekindle the romance. Kurt and he had often taken full advantage of them being away and the house being empty, but he was always upset that they made a big deal about getting away - as if they couldn’t stand being around him. And, he supposes now, it was true. They couldn’t stand being around him. 

Could anyone?

Bringing up his birth mother only served to remind him of the first person who abandoned him.

His brother, Cooper, was always quick to make promises to keep in touch before forgetting he had a brother until the next time he rolled into town. He had gotten a single text after the last time Cooper was in town, while all of his went ignored. 

Kurt had made promises when he left, too. Daily Skype dates. Texting and calling all the time. Even visits. Since then, the Skype dates have gone from not-quite-daily to rare. Blaine has grown accustomed to the sound of his voice mail message. Texts from Kurt mostly contain a vague excuse and end in “call tomorrow?”

 

It’s nearly two in the morning when he finally drives back home. There are no lights on.

He finds his mom passed out over the toilet in the master bathroom. He helps her into bed and covers her, leaving her with a bucket by the side.

The next few days are awkward at home. His mother pointedly doesn’t talk to him, and both of them spend as much time as possible out of the house to avoid each other.

He tries not to think about the shambles that is his home life, and tries to focus on how much he misses Kurt. Everywhere he looks around him, people are so happy and in love, and he feels alone. Brittany commiserates with him, but then Santana comes home for the weekend and he’s alone in his misery once more. Kurt calls from work, but he’s too busy to talk and is only calling to blow him off again. He can see Kurt slipping through his fingers and can’t imagine how he will last another 7 months until graduation like this.

He realizes that their relationship is inevitably headed to breakup. Kurt is in New York where he belongs, he’s all but forgotten about Blaine, and will easily replace him soon enough. It’s in the words Kurt doesn’t say when they are on the phone (and there’s plenty of room for those words, as the words he does say are fewer and farther between). Blaine wishes that Kurt would just end it, instead of stringing him along. He’s too tired of being disappointed by the people who he thinks love him, only to learn that that love had hit its expiry date.

 

·•·

 

It’s not always easy for Blaine to stop his thoughts once they start spiraling out in a certain direction. His medicine helped temper that a bit, but over the summer he had made the decision that his medicine was holding him back.

Almost two years earlier, an overeducated bifocal spectacled lady had diagnosed him with bipolar disorder at the lowest moment of his life, and he had been juggling pills daily ever since. They didn’t do much for him other than give him migraines, dry skin and gas. It is his hard work in staying calm and controlled that keeps him from relapsing, not the medicine, so when his mom had started slipping into the bottles looking for a high, he handed them over with no regret. He hid the left-over Vicodin from his eye surgery, just in case he needed that in the future, though.

He had also stopped going to his therapist. Feeling better than ever, he doesn’t need to rehash every one of his actions or dwell on his moods. In the spring, he had had to talk and talk about his neediness and fears of Kurt leaving him ad nauseam, until he was ready to push Kurt out the door just to prove he could survive without him. Of course, when Kurt did finally leave, it was gut wrenching, and Blaine had wanted to take all his encouragement back.

It was freeing being outside the weight of medicine or therapist or a mental illness diagnosis. He felt giddy and could think clearer and was bursting with creativity. When he is named the New Rachel, he immediately brainstorms list of ideas for their upcoming performances and competitions, helps create choreography for their first number and comes up with ways to cheer up Brittany by celebrating Britney week 2.0.

He joins all the clubs he can fit into his schedule, and puts all his energy into each one of them. (Who knew Dungeons and Dragons could be so intense?) When he sees the sign up for Student Body President, all he can think is, “who better than me?”

When his mom tells him his dad has left, it comes out of nowhere. It comes out of nowhere, because Blaine had not been paying attention. Home had become difficult over the summer, with the increase in fighting and his mom’s increase in drinking, so he avoided it if he could. Spending time with Kurt was more important, anyway.

Now, his home is in shambles and Kurt is unresponsive, and his thoughts keep circling around the idea that he isn’t worth loving. He isn’t worth it.

It isn’t easy to stop his spiraling thoughts, but Blaine had always found the best way was replacing them with something else.

He gets a bit of a reprieve when Kurt calls him that night, apologizing for the brush off earlier in the day. Blaine feels himself falling into the warm comfort of Kurt’s voice and shudders in anticipation when Kurt suggests they practice their phone sex skills.

They’re abruptly cut off when Rachel comes home with a story from NYADA that Kurt “has to hear”, and he makes rushed apologies before hanging up.

He hears his mother crashing around in the kitchen, and quickly gets up to lock his bedroom door. It’s late, but he’s not tired and there’s no one to talk to, so he pulls up Facebook to stalk his friends’ news feeds, leaving random comments and likes. He has quite a few friend requests, mostly from guys from the Gay Ohio page or Sondheim fan page. Kurt’s always rolled his eyes that Blaine accepts all friend requests, even from people he’s never met or talked to before.

“How else do you make friends, Kurt?” he had asked.

Some of the new friends, the ones from the Gay Ohio forum, immediately ask for pics, and he responds back that he’s not into that. A few send him pictures of them, naked. Sometimes just close ups of their dicks. He lingers on those and imagines what it would be like to touch - to feel the weight in his hand. It has been far too long since he’s seen Kurt, and three weeks until he goes to New York for a weekend.

Around 3:30, he tries to sleep, tosses and turns, drifting in and out of sleep, before getting up two hours later. He reads over his campaign speech, then decides it isn’t right and writes four more drafts. It’s now ten minutes until first period and he hasn’t even showered yet.

Classes seem to drag on. He knows everything the teachers are trying to teach, and it all feels like a waste of time. Instead, he reads House of Leaves during class, getting so wrapped up in the words that he almost misses the bell signaling the end of the period. He reads at his locker, too, finding deep meaning in the story, and jumps when Brittany comes up to him to introduce him to Sam.

 

“Are you okay man? You’re talking a lot, and it’s kinda all jumbled,” Sam says to him while their preparing for the debate.

“I’m just really excited about this election,” he says, and it sounds like the truth.

 

It feels like losing when he wins the election. The people around him congratulate him, but they are all strangers - faceless - when there’s only one person he wants to see. He’s buzzing with disappointment and itching with the need to talk to his boyfriend. Sam doesn’t understand when he tells him how alone and empty he feels, but he didn’t expect him to. But at least he does have a friend, a face in the crowd.

At night, he starts walking to the playground down the street. He sits on the swings and scrolls through his newsfeed on Facebook. He has pokes and messages from people he doesn’t even remember friending.

 

·•·

 

He tells Kurt he misses him. Kurt says he misses him, too. It tastes like a lie.

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s talked to Kurt. Was it days ago? Hours? Weeks? He sees him everywhere, in the periphery of his vision.

“Calm down psycho,” Kurt says with venom. “I don’t know what you thought you could offer me. I’m in New York and you’re just an Ohio nobody.”

His mind is playing tricks on him.

“Hey, sexy. Do you want to come over?” Kurt asks. Only, it’s not Kurt, it’s Eli C. Who is that? Blaine looks at the feed and sees a conversation full of flirtatious texts. Did he send those?

“Address?” he types back. Did he type that?

 

He finds himself in an apartment, pulling his shirt on, a stranger asking him if he’s alright.

“I have to go,” he says, zipping up his pants and grabbing his sweater. It’s one Kurt helped him pick out. He chokes down some bile.

When he’s home, he gets into the shower and turns it as hot as it will go. It scalds and turns his skin red, but he barely feels it.

He dresses carefully and pulls open his laptop. There’s a flight to New York with tickets left at 3 in the afternoon which he buys without hesitation with the credit card he had pulled from his mom’s purse. He picks Sunday night as his return, though contemplates just never coming back.

His phone tells him it’s Friday, but it’s not worth going to school when the sun comes up. He tries to remember how many days of school he had missed in the last week - two weeks. How long has it been since the election? He remembers singing alone in the auditorium, but was that real? He thinks Kurt was there, so maybe it was a memory from last year.

He gets the cab driver to stop for flowers on the way to Kurt’s apartment - a huge bouquet of red roses, 2 dozen.

“What’d you do to piss her off?” the cabbie jokes and he just stops himself from crying. 

 

Kurt’s smile when he sees him feels like an ice pick to his chest. How could he have ever thought Kurt stopped loving him?

He wants to tell Kurt what happened - about his parents, about feeling so alone, disconnected, out of sorts, lost, out of his mind. He can’t find the words and he’s distracted by Finn and Rachel and Rachel’s other boy and beautiful Kurt who loves him. Who will love him until he learns what a fucked up mess Blaine has become. 

He sings. He tries to put all his love and remorse into the song, and sings his heart out. It’s left bleeding on the stage.

He tries to tell Kurt he’s sorry. He can’t explain how it wasn’t even him, his body was there but he was so disconnected from what was happening.

He says he was lonely. He can’t explain how it felt like he could walk through people and they couldn’t touch him, or see him, or hear him, and how he felt at times like he was the only person in the world.

He tells Kurt he needed him. He needed Kurt so much, because he was the only person in the world besides Blaine. He doesn’t tell Kurt that he’s afraid, that he’s seeing things and that his parents hate him so much he may soon be homeless. He wants to beg Kurt just to let him live here with him. Forget finishing high school, forget Ohio.

Kurt tells him to stop talking.

 

They lie side by side on Kurt’s bed, neither sleeping. Kurt gets up early in the morning, sitting in the dark in the living room, while Blaine strains to hear any sound. At 5, he hears movement and murmurs as Finn makes his exit, and he braves getting up.

Kurt tells him to get out.

 

He has 36 hours until his flight back to Ohio. He could go to the airport and try transfer to an earlier flight. Instead he takes a train into Manhattan, gets off at the stop he remembers from the night before and starts walking. It’s aimless and the pace is slow.

As the day wears on, more people push past him, but he finds streets with less crowds. Occasionally he glances at the street signs and guesses where he is on the island. He had poured over the map of New York enough times with Kurt to know the basic grid of the city.

His mind is blank.

For the first time in months, there aren’t five different thoughts going through his mind at once.

His mind is an echoing spaceless void like the hallway in House of Leaves.

He’s not sad, because he’s not anything. He’s just blank.

 

Gradually, his legs start feeling like lead, his steps slow, and he finds a small park tucked away between buildings. It’s nearing midnight, and he’s starting to feel the exhaustion of weeks of not sleeping.

He wakes to a kink in his neck and a man trying to rummage through his pockets. He gets away with his wallet intact, but pulls out a couple dollars to give the man as spare change.

His feet protest as he starts his aimless walk once more, but he soon finds a 24 hour diner. He order coffee and nurses it with refills for the next four hours. The waitress seems annoyed and relieved when he finally gets up to leave. He leaves $20 for the $2 cup of coffee and free refills.

A cab takes him back to the airport where he waits out the remaining hours until his flight. When he gets back to his house, he climbs into bed and sleeps until noon the next day.

He contemplates just turning over to go back asleep, but decides to go to school instead. 

His mind is comfortably blank until he sees Finn. He asks him why he did what he did to Kurt.

“I don’t even know.”

It’s the truth, though it sounds so weak. He breaks inside when he thinks about it. He broke Kurt; he broke them. He hides in the back row of the choir room and doesn’t say anything as the others chatter around him.

As soon as he gets home he sleeps and wakes just in time to go to school again. At school, he walks around in a daze, not speaking and not being spoken to. He doesn’t feel lonely anymore. He invites the solitude.

 

He tries to participate in school, in glee. He tries out for the play, and breaks down crying, running to the locker room and sobbing under the spray of the shower.

His mom crashes around the house when she’s home, playing music too loud and yelling at Blaine through his door that he’s pathetic and that she’s glad he’s not really her kid.

He starts sleeping in his car, parking in different places each night, sneaking into the house early in the morning to shower and change.

He texts Kurt or calls him, leaving pleading voicemails. He sends him gifts. He doesn’t hear anything in return.

Sometimes he feels a pain that’s so sharp he can’t breathe. He cries himself to sleep. He takes an exact-o knife from his art supplies and drags the blade into his thighs again and again. The rush of endorphins calms his self-hating thoughts and allows him to drift off into a fitful sleep.

Play practice is exhausting. School is exhausting. Glee is exhausting. He knows he’s walking a fine line skipping so much, but he can’t manage to make himself sit through 8 hours of pointless classes. He ducks out to his car, or the auditorium, or the choir room, to get in a nap during the school day, often getting caught by someone from glee club or Mr. Schue. One time, Sue Sylvester rudely woke him, glaring at him in a suspicious way that he didn’t have the energy to interpret. 

 

He has sent over 300 text messages, all saying variations of “I’m sorry, I love you, Please forgive me”. He receives one text message back saying, “Stop texting. Stop calling. It’s over.” 

He doesn’t realize the play is coming so soon until he’s being told to wear his costume for dress rehearsal. His game face comes easily, slipping into song and taking on the persona of a 1950s teenage heart throb. When Kurt is backstage at opening night, it’s an ALS ice bucket challenge shock to the system.

“This isn’t home anymore,” Kurt tells him. And he knows Kurt means that he doesn’t love Blaine any more.

 

·•·

 

It hurts too much to think about and Blaine is so tired of hurting. So he stops thinking about it. He thinks about the play, about how easy it was to take on a persona and stop thinking for a little while.

He creates Nightwing, the nocturnal avenger.

 

It’s easy to convince Figgins of the need for a new Superhero club, especially after he drafts Coach Beiste as the faculty advisor. Soon, most of the glee club and many other students are running around McKinley in costumes. Blaine feels a rush of pride and a jolt of motivation.

Nightwing is able to handle classes that drag on and glee club with its petty infighting. He gets wrapped up in developing the club, and it feels good to have a purpose.

When the Warblers steal the New Directions’ national trophy, he’s incensed. They were his friends once, who betrayed him the year before, allowed Sebastian to assault him, and then ran away without once seeing if he was all right. That they would sink to such dishonorable lows as stealing made him ashamed to have ever been a Warbler.

 

He remembers, though, that as a Warbler, he had a persona, much like Nightbird - a part he played to pretend that nothing was wrong. He was an expert at hiding all the cracks, until Kurt came and exposed them all.

He considers slipping back into that old role of “Warbler Blaine”. The Warblers had gone rotten without him, but he felt rotten to his core now. He wonders if it would bring his father home and win back his mother’s love.

Instead, he decides to stay at McKinley.

 

He needs more roles to play, though, he decided. Friday night found him walking into Scandals, hair a mass of loose curls, tight black t-shirt, blue jeans. He stays all night, dancing, drinking, flirting with older guys.

He tells them his name is James (like James Dean). They laugh and know he’s lying. He comes back the next night, and more nights through the next week.

A regular, Mark, notices him, invites him to come back to his place for a party. How old is he, Mark asks.

“Old enough,” he lies.

 

The parties at Mark’s place happen often, men making out and grinding arrhythmically to the loud unce unce unce unce that drowned out any actual music. He doesn’t know how he got here, with a guy’s hand on his dick under cheap strobe lights. He doesn’t know how to say no, when someone passes him a rolled up dollar bill, pointing to a white line on the glass table.

He comes back nightly, sometimes crashing on Mark’s couch, sometimes sleeping in his bed, naked and sore from sex he only half remembers.

He’s James, or Jimmy on these nights, but turns back into Blaine during the day. He puts on his game face and a tie, though he can’t muster much more, snapping at his friends and sitting back as they plan for the upcoming Sectionals competition.

 

He spends his free time hitting the punching bag in the locker room, and gets in trouble when Coach Beiste catches him hitting it without gloves, cutting open his knuckles, and he’s banned for a week.

Joe seems to notice something’s off about Blaine. He starts sitting next to him in rehearsal and chatting to him. He’s not quite sure what to make of the religious boy, so he answers him in clipped phrases and avoids him as much as he can. 

He blows off rehearsal and dance practice one too many times, and it’s Mercedes who confronts him about it. He snaps at her, telling her to mind her own business before storming out of the school. The next day, he comes to rehearsal with an apology for Mercedes and the entire club, before slinking back to the back row.

Even though he has a duet with Marley, he isn’t particularly excited about Sectionals. He’s sitting on the risers on stage, waiting to get into position for their turn in the competition, when his phone buzzes.

 

**Kurt <333**

 

He answers - hoping it isn’t a butt dial - but there is Kurt’s voice, telling him he’s missing him and when he gasps out that he loves him, Kurt responds that he loves Blaine too.

 

The next few hours, his body is buzzing on a high. So, they lost Sectionals. So, Marley collapsed - she’d be fine.

That night, he drives aimlessly, pushing 80 miles per hour down the long straight Ohio country roads, singing loudly to Katy and Pink. He pulls up to the Walmart… He forgot it was Thanksgiving - well, Black Friday now - but he easily joins the crowds of shoppers.

His shopping cart is full with a KitchenAid mixer, a waffle iron, three sets of bedsheets, baby clothes and baby food, 15 packs of chap stick for Sam, five packs of underwear, a woman’s sweater, 17 video games, a tv, picture frames, silverware, packs and packs of candy and condoms. Among other things.

 

The rest of the weekend goes by in a blur. He calls Kurt three more times, and they talk each time.

 

He drives around the country side at night, pulling over to catch a few hours sleep.

 

He goes to the mall and the outlet center.

 

He gets to school early to punch the bag, singing and dancing around it as he pounds into it.

 

After glee club is disbanded, it’s just natural to join the Cheerios, and he convinces Tina to come with him.

 

He shows off some of the gymnastic moves he knows during his audition, and Coach Sylvester tells him he has “no finesse but no fear, I can work with that.”

 

He starts going to Mark’s parties again.

Mark tells him he looks high on life and energy drinks, and offers him other things to get him high.

He just laughs and falls into the beat of the unce unce unce unce.

 

He spends as little time as possible at home, but one night, when he stops to change his outfit and take a shower, he comes in to find his dad there.

 

·•·

 

His dad is mad.

Blaine has spent several thousand dollars in the past week on his credit card. He didn’t even realize he spent that much, but his Black Friday shopping spree was just the first of four impulsive shopping trips he had made since Thanksgiving. He doesn’t even remember everything he bought.

He realizes that this is the first time he has seen his dad since before he moved out and yells at him for leaving him and his mom. His dad calmly tells him that he no longer wants to be his father. He doesn’t want to be associated with him. That his lawyer will settle his inheritance into accounts, but beyond that don’t expect anything else from him. Blaine screams at him, calling him names.

After his dad leaves, his mom comes in and tells him that she owes him nothing. She’s not his mom, after all.

She tells him to get out of her house and stay out, she doesn’t care where he goes. She tells him that his birth mom should have gotten an abortion so that he didn’t ruin so many people’s lives.

 

Blaine runs to his room, shoves clothes and pictures of Kurt into suitcases haphazardly. He runs to his mother’s room and grabs every prescription bottle sitting on the nightstand, half of them with his own name on the label, and the bottle of vodka standing on the floor next to the bed.

He shoves the suitcases into his car and drives off as fast as he can.

Unconsciously, he finds himself driving to Mark’s. As usual, the house is filled with men and music and mystery smoke. Three days go by, the days spent passed out on Mark’s bathroom floor, the nights drunk and fucking strangers.

The third night, somewhere around 3 in the morning, he staggers to his car and drives it to the park near his mom’s house (no longer his house). He grabs the bottle of vodka and bag of pill bottles he stole from his mom’s room and wanders into the park.

 

Sitting against the chain-link cage to the baseball field, he hits his head against it several times, enjoying the rattle.

He pulls out the first bottle: Vicodin. Looks like his mom had found the pills from his eye surgery. Carefully, he opens the bottle and swallows two to three pills at a time, helping it down with gulps of vodka. There aren’t many pills left in the bottle, so he opens the next one: Abilify. He laughs. He’s been going crazy for months, and these are the pills that were supposed to keep him out of danger. Would he have cheated on Kurt if he had just stayed on his meds and hadn’t spun so out of control? He swallows five at a time, easily.

It’s enough for now, he thinks. He’s starting to feel nauseous, and if he throws up, he has plenty more pills to replace the ones lost. 

He lies down on his side, the rattle of the chain-link orchestrating his movements. He doesn’t want to be alive any more. And soon he won’t be. It’s the abortion his mom wished on him, 18 years too late.

He searches his pockets for his phone, but can’t find it. He doesn’t remember the last time he had it, but guesses he lost it somewhere at Mark’s, or even left it at home. He’s disappointed, because at the moment, he really wishes he could say goodbye to Kurt. Say I love you one last time.

He tries to stand up, but falls as his limbs are weighted down. So he lies in the cold dirt instead, closing his eyes and willing the nausea to calm. He falls asleep.

 

·•·

 

When he wakes, the lights are bright and it’s loud around him. His stomach hurts viciously, and he feels like gagging. It takes him a few moments to realize he’s in a bed. There are wires coming out of his arms, which are strapped to the bed in restraints. 

There’s movement around him and people asking him questions, but he’s too busy trying to figure out what’s going on to answer.

 

“You’re in the hospital, Blaine,” someone tells him, and he’s surprised to look up and find Carole, Kurt’s step mom. “Can you tell us what you took last night?”

He closes his eyes tight and tries to shakes his head. He remembers. He failed.

“You had a lot in your system. We’ve had to pump your stomach,” she tells him, explaining his aching stomach. “You’re lucky you were asleep for that, it’s not a pleasant experience.”

He doesn’t say anything. She undoes the restraints on his wrists. “Can you tell me what you took last night?”, she asks again.

“I’m sorry,” he cries, not answering her question. “Don’t tell Kurt,” he begs.

“I won’t tell Kurt, Blaine,” Carole promises, but he’s not sure he believes her. “What did you take?”

“Pills. A lot of them. I don’t think she liked them because there were so many left,” he explains. She looks confused. “And vodka. I think I had something at Mark’s, too, but I don’t remember.”

 

“Who’s Mark?” the police officer asks from his other side. When did he get there?

“Mark from Scandals. He has parties.” 

“Blaine, this is Sharon Harris. She’s going to ask you some questions.” Carole’s gone, and Blaine’s aware that time has shifted again.

“Blaine, I talked to your mom. She said you haven’t been home in three days.” Had it been three days? The time at Mark’s seemed to blur together. “Where were you? At Mark Burgess’ house?” She knows Mark?

 

“She’s not my mom,” Blaine answers. “She told me that I should have been aborted. I tried.”

“Is that why you took so many pills? Did you want to die?” asks Judy. He hasn’t seen his therapist in months. What was she doing here? “I came to assess you. It seems you may be in the middle of an episode,” she explains patiently, and he gets the sense that she’s done it more than once.

He laughs, “I think I’ve been going crazy for months.”

“Have you been taking your medicine?” she asks. 

“My mom stole it. I stole it back and took it all tonight,” he explains, closing his eyes.

 

When he opens them again, she’s gone, and he realizes he has lost time again. He looks to his left and sitting by his bed is Burt Hummel.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hey, bud,” Burt says, shifting in his seat. “I’m glad to see you awake.”

“You should hate me,” he says, coughing.

“I think you hate yourself enough for the both of us,” Burt responds. He pours a cup of water from the plastic jug on the bed tray. Blaine takes the water, and sips it carefully, hoping he won’t throw it up.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks again. 

Burt seems to examine him, though Blaine’s not sure what he would be looking for. “You needed someone to be here for you. I can’t leave one of my kids alone when they need me.”

Blaine swallows, an ache growing in his chest. He closes his eyes, praying that when he opens them more time will have passed and Burt will be gone. He’s still there.

“I’m not your kid,” he says, mournfully.

“You are. You may not be my son, or even my step son. But you are one of mine. Just like Sam. Just like Rachel and Mercedes,” Burt explains, “You need someone on your side right now, and that’s me.”

“But I hurt Kurt. I cheated on him. You should hate me,” he repeats.

“Am I mad at you? Yes. You hurt my son very badly. But you also hurt yourself even worse. And I am very angry at you for that. I don’t hate you, though. 

“I fucked another guy. I fucked lots of guys. I’m pretty sure I fucked someone last night,” Blaine spits out, trying to convey how rotten inside he is to Burt.

Burt presses his lips together until they turn white. “The first time we talked, you were convincing me to give Kurt the sex talk. You told me you had to learn everything you knew from the internet. I think learning that way, you missed out, so I’m going to tell you now what I told Kurt then. Sex may feel good and you may think that you can separate the emotions from your actions, but having sex does something to you. So, don’t throw yourself around like you don’t matter, because you do. You matter.”

“Do I though?” he asks wearily.

“I think you do. So does Kurt. Even if you don’t think so right now, you have friends and family who love you.”

“No, I don’t,” Blaine argues. It’s unfair that Burt is bringing up Kurt like this, but he is wrong about people loving him - especially his family.

“Kurt has been going crazy since you wouldn’t answer your phone. You have an entire glee club that has been worried sick about you for days.”

“Do they know?” Blaine asks, surprised that he’s not more embarrassed that they do.

Burt shakes his head. “No. Finn, Sam and Kurt know you are in the hospital, but not why. They agreed not to tell the rest where you are, just that you need some time away.”

“They don’t love me,” Blaine says, bitterly.

“They do. Sam says -“

“No. My family,” Blaine interrupts. “They hate me. My dad disowned me and my mom told me she no longer wants to be my mom - that she regrets wasting her life on me.”

“That’s horrible, Blaine,” Burt says, seriously.

“I shouldn’t care. Why should I care? I don’t need a homophobic asshole in my life.”

“You care because they’re your family and they should love you. Parents should love their kids no matter what.”

“Says Burt Hummel - best father ever,” Blaine argues. “Not everyone’s like you, you know. Willing to change opinions when dealt the fag son.”

“Hey,” Burt interrupts sternly. “Do not use that word.”

Blaine laughs bitterly. “Better me than my dad. Or my mom. I never expected her to say it, but people can change when they start hating people they’re supposed to love.”

Burt stares sadly at Blaine, before asking, “Why did you do it, Blaine?”

“What?” Blaine asks despite knowing what Burt’s asking.

“Why did you swallow all those pills?” Burt clarifies. “Did you want to die?”

Blaine thinks, then answers honestly, “I didn’t want to live.” He wonders if Burt understands the difference.

“Carole said your therapist was here. I didn’t know you were seeing one.”

“I haven’t been for months,” he explains.

“Maybe it’s time you start talking to her again,” Burt says. “Or we can find someone else if she’s not helping you.”

“We?” Blaine asks.

“I told you,” Burt answers, “you’re my kid, you need my help so I’m here for you.”

It’s not until a tear drops onto his hand that Blaine realizes he’s crying. “I think I need help.”

Burt nods.


End file.
